12 posts in this topic

Patch 7.1 goes live on October 25. Ion Hazzikostas has been answering your questions in the latest Legion Dev Q/A. Check out our recap!

Patch 7.1 Release Date

Patch 7.1's release date has been announced during today's Legion Q/A. It will go live on October 25. This is somewhat unexpected as many of us anticipated the patch to release a little later.

Blizzard Entertainment

Mark your calendars and get ready to make your Return to Karazhan on October 25! Patch 7.1: Return to Karazhan will take you further into the ongoing stories within Legion and bring with it new and exciting challenges.

Are you brave enough to step through this dark tower's doors once more?

A Legion Developer Q/A took place today and here's a recap. Ion Hazzikostas has been answering all your questions!

Legion Developer Q/A

Class Balance

The team is happy with balance, but admits there's still a lot of work to do.

We should expect some class balance changes before and after Patch 7.1.

Numbers players are looking at to gauge balance are a reflection of actual people playing the game, not a reflection of sims.

A large community portion that plays the "strongest thing". Those are the same players that are min-maxing and trying to play the cutting edge.

Whichever spec is played by most of the people is going to get a natural bump in results.

Frost Mage was set as an example, He's way better in game than logging sites suggest and that's because a lot of top-notch mages are playing Fire.

If the Frost specialization received buffs and became the best spec, plenty of Fire players would feel frustrated with how much effort they devoted to their gear and Artifact weapon.

The very same players that made Fire look strong in logs would start switching to Frost.

The team is trying to avoid wild swings in class balance.

Bring the player not the class is the main concern, but the game drifted a little to farm from bringing the class.

This statement dates back to Sunwell Plateau raiding during late Burning Crusade where you needed a melee group. The Rogue needed a Warrior, the Warrior a Shaman and suddenly there were only two spots left in the melee group.

This was a problem and got solved with raid-wide buffs that eliminated mandatory interactions between classes.

The plan is to re-introduce abilities that allow to fill special roles or give utility.

Shadow Priests

There are currently issues with Surrender to Madness. It was supposed to be high risk/high reward, but instead, ended in playing too much of a role in class viability.

The team wants to offer other robust alternatives to it, but this won't happen until after 7.1.

Fury Warriors

Changes are coming in Patch 7.1.

These changes are only a band-aid and a future redesign will be necessary.

The damage penalty is being reduced from 30% to 20%.

The team admits they should have listened more to the feedback from beta, but better late than never.

The extra damage taken feels frustrating, because there's no way to control it.

Ultimately, the fantasy is to giving up some defense for extra damage, but having some control over it.

Protection Warriors

Should be a combo of tanky and mobile with abilities like Heroic Leap and Intercept that help achieve it.

Some of the rage from damage taken was a throwback to the old warrior days.

Getting punched makes you angry and you use the anger to fuel your attacks.

It was a replacement for Vengeance and Resolve.

It's important for your tankiness to scale with the content you're doing.

A single digit percentage of people who got their first leg did get a second one but it didn't have a big impact.

The team should also have implemented good luck protection for legendaries to address the non-functional perception of the system.

Players can randomly get 3 legs without the system being broken, it's RNG.

Raids

Trial of Valor

Won't open on October 25, but two weeks after Patch launch (after BlizzCon).

Mythic Emerald Nightmare

The team isn't satisfied with how they tuned Xavius on Mythic difficulty. Ideally he would have taken at least a few days to kill.

The rest encounters had a nice ramp of difficulty.

Top guilds are doing a lot of split clears, which result in clearing the raid with a higher item level than other guilds.

The developer team would like to find ways to dis-incentivize things done by top guilds like split clears that players don't enjoy, but consider them necessary to stay competitive.

Karazhan

The attunement will be an account-wide unlock and requires followers of item level 850.

Action Camera

Is making a return in Patch 7.1 and will disable itself every time you log in.

Bonus Roll

The Bonus Roll can't award anything else apart from Gold if you get no loot.

The system needs improvement (e.g. rewarding Artifact Power), because Gold reward feels more like an insult rather than consolation prize.

Mythic+ Dungeons

There are no current plans to increase the item level rewarded from Mythic+ with the release of Trial of Valor raid.

The item level will be increased with the release of the Nighthold.

While admitting ninja-leaving in Mythic+ is a frustrating experience, the team can't think of alternatives that wouldn't result in a serious abuse of the system.

If player swapping would be allowed, what would stop the leader from kicking people and bringing his friends?

If the keystone was restored if somebody leaves, every group would make someone leave if the run went bad.

I feel the sudden urge to add my personal opinion here. Like how hard is it to implement a Leaver Penalty that would render the leaver unable to join Mythic dungeons for x days? The penalty would have a multiplicative nature, increasing by +24 hours with every additional leave. Problem solved?

Mythic Dungeons & Class Balance

The team is aiming for areas of strength and weakness. Not every class can have strong consistent AoE.

E.g. a Feral Druid is great at single-target DPS whereas a Demon Hunter does high AoE damage.

AoE is an important tool for speed farms, which was especially the case during dungeon farming prior to the Emerald Nightmare release.

If we say "Strong AoE" Shadow Priests probably aren't something you'd think of even though a Shadow Priest was in a group performing well in a Mythic+15 keystone clear.

It's hard to find a group (regardless of how good you and your spec are) if your spec is perceived by the community as being bad.

Relics

Unlike other items, item level is what matters when you're evaluating upgrades. The team is perfectly fine with that.

Relics not being destroyed would result in bags full of relics that players would constantly swap.

Emerald Nightmare Trinkets

The team is looking at EN trinkets that aren't as powerful as they should be so expect buffs.

Artifact Power & Knowledge

There are no plants to allow moving AP from one weapon to another.

AK makes it easy to keep up with your other weapon.

The team didn't want to have a hard weekly cap. It would feel like a responsibility to hit the cap and after hitting it there'd be no motivation to play.

Research rates for alts are a little shorter to help them catch up.

Drastic catch up measures might be necessary in a few months to get you quickly caught up.

World Quests Variety

Overlapping world quests aren't handled well now.

The system tries to avoid overlapping and prioritize WQ that haven't been seen recently.

If another quest is still active in that area the system can't put the new one up.

Quests up often are the only ones available in that area.

Once UI & gameplay fixes are made, multiple world quests will have the option to appear in a single area, reducing quests that appear too often.

World Quest Rewards

Rewards aren't adjusted to your loot specialization.

It'd be annoying if the map changed every time you switch specs.

Having to cycle between different specs to see different rewards isn't good.

It allows you to get items for off-specs without having to change your loot specialization.

Hidden Artifact Appearances

The team's avoiding a singular approach.

The hunter appearance being on a vendor was implemented to give Hunters an alternative option that wasn't a gun.

The Fury Warrior appearance being only from a World Boss is a valid concern and will be addressed in the future.

If an appearance is hard to get, it's more prestigious and impressive.

It was fun watching the community come together to find hidden things, hopefully there's more of this in the future.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I feel the sudden urge to add my personal opinion here. Like how hard is it to implement a Leaver Penalty that would render the leaver unable to join Mythic dungeons for x days? The penalty would have a multiplicative nature, increasing by +24 hours with every additional leave. Problem solved?

This is a common solution in most games and I think it would be even more successful in wow. But BL if you get dc :P

Great write up thanks a lot

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

To be fair, if they didn't have the new raid, we would have had 6+ months of EN. Doesn't exactly sound that fun, especially for those that have cleared Mythic already. This isn't exactly a big raid either, EN will definitely still be run by many guilds. Loot is the same item level as well.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

This is a common solution in most games and I think it would be even more successful in wow. But BL if you get dc :P

Great write up thanks a lot

Surely people could just not leave the group then? They can AFK in the dungeon instead until you kick them or jump around and not participate. If that kick invokes the penalty, people can then abuse it and give people leaver's penalty for "being bad".

It's a bit more complicated than people think, IMO.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Surely people could just not leave the group then? They can AFK in the dungeon instead until you kick them or jump around and not participate. If that kick invokes the penalty, people can then abuse it and give people leaver's penalty for "being bad".

It's a bit more complicated than people think, IMO.

Yeah you're right there is no black / white way to do it otherwise Blizzard would have already had a system put in I suppose

Recently Browsing
0 members

Similar Content

Game Director Ion Hazzikostas will be answering your Tides of Vengeance and Season 2 questions on Friday at 11:00 a.m. PST.
Blizzard (Source)
Join us live on Twitch on Thursday, January 24 as we sit down with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas for our next live developer Q&A, where he’ll be answering your questions on the latest content update—Tides of Vengeance and Season 2 questions.
Submit your questions by posting in this forum thread or via Twitter using the hashtag #WarcraftQA.
We’re looking forward to getting the chance to dive in and answer as much as we can; we hope to see you Friday at 11:00 a.m. PST!

Battle of Dazar'alor opens tomorrow and we've updated our guides section with new raid guides.
Overview
Battle for Azeroth's second raid, Battle of Dazar'alor, houses 9 bosses. It comes with a unique flashback mechanic that transforms your raid into the opposing faction with racials included, to witness the story from their perspective. Certain boss encounters are faction-specific and the boss order is different for each faction.
Alliance players will be transformed into Horde players for the last three bosses: High Tinker Mekkatorque, Stormwall Blockade and Jaina Proudmoore.
Horde players will be transformed into Alliance players for Opulence, Conclave of the Chosen, and King Rastakhan.
Raid Unlock Schedule
The minimum item level for Raid Finder is 350. We'll be covering the Mythic Race starting January 29.
January 22*
Normal & Heroic Difficulties
January 29
Mythic & Raid Finder Wing 1
February 12
Raid Finder Wing 2
February 26
Raid Finder WIng 3
* add +1 day for EU
Battle of Dazar'alor Raid Guides
We've updated our guide section with strategy guides for all encounters within Battle of Dazar'alor. You can find the individual boss order for both factions below.
Battle of Dazar'alor Alliance Boss Order

Forbes recently interviewed Morgan Day about Mythic+ and the Mythic Dungeon Invitational and here's a recap of the interview.
Check out the full interview over at Forbes
Interview Highlights
Changes are coming to the MDI in 2019 and you can find an overview in this post.
The beginning of MDI closely lines up with the introduction of Reaping and Season 2.
Mythic+ is extremely popular and half of the players at level 120 are engaging in Mythic+ content.
Certain creatures within dungeons have mechanics that quickly ramp up damage and it was necessary to put a soft cap in those instances, because the fights would become impossible on Tyrannical.
There's a fix set of affix combinations that activate each week.
The Fortified + Teeming affix combo hasn't been adjusted for Season 2, because Infested that caused a lot of frustrating pulls in combination with said affixes is going away and with Reaping coming in, the system is going to take care of itself.
Monsters summoned by the Season 2 Reaping affix don't gain Fortified themselves, but the creature will spawn at half the health of the creature that dies, so it will gain a small percentage of Fortified.
There are currently no plans to come up with a system that allows easy key re-rolling. Instead, they'd like to adjust dungeons and bring the huge outliers down a bit. They adjusted King's Rest about a month ago.

Improvements to Azerite Armor are coming on January 22. Blizzard added a new outer ring with two spec-specific traits to all armor acquired after Mythic Season 2 starts and the new raid opens. You will be able to get the new gear from PvP Season 2, Battle of Dazar'alor, World Quest Emissaries, and from the Titan Residuum vendor, who sells upgraded wares at a higher cost.
New Azerite powers will become available in Tides of Vengeance Part II. Check out our updated Class guides for more details.
10 more ranks of Azerite Knowledge will be added over the course of January 22 through March. The catchup has been disabled for now, but it will commence soon.
Reaching Friendly, Honored, and Revered and with Champions of Azeroth will unlock the appropriate quests to upgrade your Heart of Azeroth for all characters on your account.
The cost of Azerite Reforging has been reduced from 72 hours to 24 hours.
Blizzard (Source)
Since the launch of Battle for Azeroth, players have been empowering their Heart of Azeroth and collecting Azerite armor to gear up for the battles ahead. Since then, we’ve made a variety of adjustments to the system—and we have a few more updates coming with the second part of Tides of Vengeance on January 22 that we’d like go into more detail on today.
With the release of Battle for Azeroth Season 2, we’re introducing new epic Azerite pieces that you can acquire through a variety of methods, including Season 2 PvP, the Battle of Dazar’alor raid, World Quest Emissaries, and from the Mythic Keystone vendor Thaumaturge Vashreen in Zuldazar and Boralus. These new items will have a fifth ring with additional new trait options and is available at Heart of Azeroth level 15.
This new outer ring provides two choices of traits per specialization, giving players an opportunity to find items that have traits they particularly want—and the freedom to create new and interesting combinations that may not have been possible before. This additional ring of traits makes each item have a larger impact on your character’s overall power.
Outer Ring:
Powers that reside in the new outer ring provide two additional trait options for each of your character’s available specializations.
Example:
Moment of Repose (Discipline)
(Passive) Pain Suppression applies Atonement to the target and instantly heals them for 15,313.
Second Ring:
Powers that reside on the second ring from the outside will often be influenced by where you collected the piece of armor they’re found on. These powers can also be associated with specific class specializations..
Example:
Seductive Power
(Passive) Your spells and abilities have a chance to conjure Bwonsamdi’s spectral visage, beckoning you closer. If you approach him, gain 57 to all stats for 5 minutes, stacking up to 5 times. If you fail to heed his call, lose 1 stack.
Third Ring:
These powers generally benefit the performance of your in-game role—they’ll provide damage increases for DPS classes, increase damage mitigation for tanks, or bolster healing output for healers.
Example:
Bracing Chill
(Passive) Your heals have a chance to apply Bracing Chill. Healing a target with Bracing Chill will heal for an additional 2,574 and move Bracing Chill to a nearby ally (up to 6 times).
Fourth Ring:
These are defensive or utility-oriented powers for your class.
Example:
Vampiric Speed
(Passive) When an enemy you harmed dies, you heal for 6,361 and gain 93 Speed for 6 seconds.
Fifth Ring:
Azerite Empowerment is the power that resides at the center, and increases an armor piece’s item level by 5.
New Traits to Discover
You’ll also find new location-specific traits that scale with item level and are available on gear from the Battle of Dazar’alor raid, including:
Bonded Souls : Your spells and abilities have a chance to trigger a Soulbond for 15 seconds. During Soulbond, every 5 seconds you and your nearest ally are both healed for 3,456 and gain 141 Haste for 5 seconds.
Seductive Power: Your spells and abilities have a chance to conjure Bwonsamdi’s spectral visage, beckoning you closer. If you approach him, gain 26 to all stats for 5 minutes, stacking up to 5 times. If you fail to heed his call, lose 1 Stack.
Treacherous Covenant: Your primary stat is increased by 151 while you are above 50% health. You take 15% increased damage while below 20% health.
Azerite Knowledge
With the start of Season 2, we’re also adding 10 more ranks of Azerite Knowledge over the course of January 22 through March. Each rank of Artifact Knowledge increases the speed at which your Heart of Azeroth levels up.
Tides of Vengeance Recap: Trait Updates and Additions
With the launch of Tides of Vengeance on December 11, we replaced many of the Azerite traits we weren’t happy with and continue to iterate on various elements of the system to provide variety and flexibility in player gear choices.
NEW TRAITS IN THE DARKSHORE WARFRONT
It’s a good time to keep an eye on the shifting tides of the Darkshore Warfront. We added many new Azerite Armor traits that are just waiting to be collected, including:
Ancients' Bulwark: Standing still grants you Deep Roots, increasing your Versatility by 179. Moving instead grants you Uprooted, healing you for 259 every 1 second.
Apothecary's Concoctions: Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal 1,262 Plague damage over 6 seconds, and your healing abilities have a chance to restore 2,415 health over 6 seconds. These effects are increased by up to 100% based on the target’s missing health.
Endless Hunger: Your Versatility is increased by 179. Moving near an enemy’s corpse consumes their essence, restoring 1,815 health.
Shadow of Elune: Your spells and abilities have a chance to increase your Haste by 465 for 15 seconds. At night, you also gain 10% movement speed for the duration.
HEART OF AZEROTH LEVELING AND GEARING UP
Reaching Friendly, Honored, or Revered reputation with the Champions of Azeroth faction now unlocks the appropriate quests to upgrade your Heart of Azeroth for all characters on your account.
The cost to change Azerite traits has been reduced from 72 hours to 24 hours.
We’ve also added a new way for players who participate in Mythic Keystone Dungeons to gain specific Azerite Armor. These players will be able to earn a new currency—Titan Residuum—which can be used to purchase specific items from Thaumaturge Vashreen now located in either Zuldazar or Boralus. You can read more in our forum post.
Season 2 and the Battle of Dazar’alor are just around the corner—are you ready for the challenges that await?

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj opened on January 23, 2006 for the first time ever and players who banged the gong gained the "Scarab Lord" title and the Black Qiraji Resonating Crystal mount. In remembrace of the event, Silithus has been updated with content that allows both factions to compete against each other and the winning faction gets to fly their banner next to the Scarab Gong for the rest of the year.
Blizzard (Source)
On January 23, 2006, a bloody war was triggered by a simple sound: the banging of a gong. No rallying fanfare, no bloodthirsty yell; just an eerie silence. Those long, uneasy seconds of dread. The calm before the storm.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder before the Scarab Wall, no one could have predicted what would happen—an epic ten-hour battle that claimed the lives of thousands of Azeroth’s bravest—or fully comprehended the effect it would have.
ACTION FIRST, FACTION SECOND
That’s not to say the battle at the gates of Ahn’Qiraj came as a surprise. When the menace of C’Thun turned into an urgent threat, leaders across the world pored over plans and forged unlikely connections as pressure mounted. Both factions knew war was coming and personal glory was a hubris no-one could risk. Any notion that one army could defeat General Rajaxx and his colossal battalion was soon abandoned as fantasy.
It was a unique time: scattered armies with varying allegiances were thrown together and faction pride was put aside. Let’s be clear: the battle at Ahn’Qiraj was won purely on the principle “united we stand, divided we fall.”
WARMONGERING VS. GOLD HUNGERING
This uneasy alliance was not without its critics. Some showed their disapproval by shunning the war effort altogether, but others expressed opposition through acts of aggression. Rogue elements on both sides, unwilling to stomach this perceived betrayal of their faction, did not sit idle. Just as neutral auction houses became a tool for factions to share resources, they also became virtual battlegrounds. Crucial resources were picked up for next-to-nothing and sold on for personal gain. As with all wars, those who profit aren’t always the brave.
The sheer scale of that war effort is almost unimaginable when we live in a time of extended storage and fast mail. But back then, backpacks and cloth stacks were smaller. Getting precious resources gathered, sorted, and sent took many hours. And it took several weeks to source bandages, food, and equipment—resources that were in high demand and would soon dwindle.
THE IMPORTANCE OF REMEMBRANCE
We would do well, in these dark times, to remember the courage and spirit of those who were there at the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj. We must have long memories if we’re to make quick work of the demon forces we now face.
From January 21–23 we ask that you join us as we remember the fallen and celebrate the victory. All of Azeroth are invited to a special holiday, ‘Call of the Scarab,’ where we will gather to perform acts of remembrance and share our factions’ pride.
Players who are in a different phase can speak to Rhonormu near the gong to enter the correct event phase.